42 THEBIGISSUE6–25DEC2013
NOT ALL ‘BREAK-up albums’ are created equal. When New
York pop duo Cults released their second LP, Static, in
October it was labelled a ‘break-up album’. But this was more
than a collection of songs with lyrics about breaking up; the
band members were a couple, and they made the album after
breaking up with each other. “So much of the idea of our band
istiedup–orwastiedup,Ishouldsay–inthefactofus
being a couple,” says Brian Oblivion, who forms one half of
Cults with Madeline Follin.
There are countless bands built around the union of central
lovers, but fewer that persist in the face of a break-up. Or
divorce. It seems symbolic that rock’n’roll’s most celebrated
divorcees, Jack and Meg White of the now-dormant White
Stripes, spent years pretending they were brother and sister.
“When they’re brother and sister, you care more about the
music, not the relationship,” Jack White once explained.
The model of a working relationship forged from an amiable
divorce seems charmed in hindsight, given his divorce from
his second wife, Karen Elson, resulted both in a public falling-
out and a bitter 2012 solo album, Blunderbuss (although ex-
wife Elson does feature on the album’s backing vocals).
Indie rock’s longest-running divorcees were never The
White Stripes, but Portland indie band Quasi. The duo
of songwriter Sam Coomes and drummer Janet Weiss
(of Sleater-Kinney and Wild Flag fame) formed in 1993
when the pair was married, but the relationship fell
apart during the making of Quasi’s debut album, R&B
Transmogrification (1997). “Perhaps it gives a somewhat
unusual depth to our relationship [in] that we’ve gone
through high highs and low lows together,” Coomes said in a
2001 interview. This year Quasi released their ninth album,
Mole City.
In the pre-internet past, private relationships within
bands often remained just that. Even infamous examples
like Fleetwood Mac (whose inter-band affairs were the stuff
of soap opera), the Eurythmics (featuring exes Annie Lennox
and Dave Stewart), and Blondie (whose founding couple
Chris Stein and Debbie Harry split in the 1980s) came in an
era when music mattered more than biography.
In the age of media saturation, the story matters as
much as the music. This is evident in the ups and downs
of American pop-folk duo The Civil Wars, whose story is
arguably more interesting than their music. Singer Joy
Williams and guitarist John Paul White were each married
to other people, but their lyrics and on-stage chemistry
meant are-they-or-aren’t-they speculation was rife
throughout the band’s short history. Their debut album,
Barton Hollow, was released in 2011 but they cancelled a
2012 word tour due to “internal discord and irreconcilable
differences of ambition”. By the time their self-titled second
record was released – hitting #1 in the US and #2 in the UK
–
they were no longer on speaking terms.
BREAKING UP IS HARD TO DO, ESPECIALLY WHEN YOUR SIGNIFICANT
OTHER IS YOUR BANDMATE.